Coca-Cola Japan - World's first hot canned carbonated beverage

Japan has vending machines on every block. No joke. There are thousands and thousands of vending machines especially in cities. They even save us a trip to a store to get hot beverages on cold days because they sell hot canned beverages like all kinds of hot coffee and tea, corn soup, Japanese sweet red-bean soup and even Oden (Japanese winter dish - Vegetables and other ingredients cooked in a light, soy-flavored dashi broth) etc. In fact, I always recommend to my friends visiting Japan from other countries to try some new hot canned beverages and they usually love canned corn soup.

However, we have not had hot canned carbonated drinks before, and Coca-Cola Japan thought that because Japan has traditional hot drinks using ginger and spices and people love them, why not hot Canada Dry Ginger Ale?

They spent 4 years to develop the world's first hot canned carbonated beverage - Canada Dry Hot Ginger Ale - and it will be released on October 21.

Regarding the flavor, some apple and cinnamon flavors were added to the regular ginger ale. It gives a more delicate feeling to the flavor.

Those who are planning to travel in Japan this winter should put hot ginger ale on their to-do list!

Major Japanese instant noodle vendor, Acecook, is going to start a new instant noodle series, EDGE, and they are going to introduce outrageous noodle products from now on. As its first shot, they are going to release a shocking (but something that suites recent tastes) instant noodle on January 13.

Japan Airlines is going to start offering a special in-flight meal jointly developed with Kumamoto prefecture which is located in the southern island of Kyushu. The name of the in-flight meal is (of course) named after THAT famous bear character mascot, "Air Kumamon".

At the convenience store chain, Ministop, now you can buy a savory Japanese Okonomiyaki that you can casually eat with one hand.

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese dish (sometimes referred to as a Japanese savory pancake) that you cook on a hot griddle and eat with a lot of special Okonomiyaki sauce, fish flakes, mayonnaise, and green dried seaweed on top. It's tough to eat it with only one hand, but Ministop made it possible to do that with their newly released product called Tsukimi-yaki.

SanktGallen, a microbrewery from Atsugi, Kanagawa prefecture, is going to release Sakura-mochi flavored beer - called "Sakura" - in a limited quantity on February 27.

Sakura-mochi is a seasonal rice cake filled with sweet bean paste and wrapped in preserved cherry leaf. Less hops are used for this Sakura beer to maximize the Sakura flavors extracted from cherry blossom petals and leaves.

Japan is awesome especially when it comes to food, culture, entertainment, and of course, geeky techie things, however Japan is not awesome at all regarding the coffee situation. It is usually very bitter or extremely watered down and diluted. One of the most popular types is called "American" at a regular cafe. If you order this, you're basically getting bitter coffee diluted with hot water.

House Wellness Food today released a new energy drink called SAMURIDE ENERGY DRINK produced with "Japan" as the theme.

Speaking of energy drinks available in Japan, foreign products like Red Bull and Monster Energy, come to mind first if you live here. Of course, there are many old school longtime energy drinks that exist here like Lipovitan D, Tiovita and Alinamin V, however it's hard to think of any "fashionable" Japanese energy drink brand easily.

Today, a new type of Yakiniku (Japanese-style BBQ) restaurant called Tokkyu Yakiniku has opened in Osaka, Japan.

"Tokkyu", a part of the restaurant name, means express train in Japanese. The reason why the restaurant was named like that is obvious: at the restaurant, all the dishes and drinks are delivered on a moving plate on a train track. Yes, it's like a Kaiten-sushi / Rotating sushi / Sushi train, but instead of sushi, slices of meat come to your table by express train.

Cold soba noodle is one of the most refreshing dishes to eat during the hot summer in Japan. But it's so good that it may be served too often in the same way and family members will eventually get really bored with it.

Keystone Technology's LED vegetable garden system is a cultivation system for indoor plant factories which uses LED lighting instead of sunlight. The most defining feature of the system on display at the company's showroom in Yokohama is its 3-dimensional use of space.